ARTIST PROFILE
- Slovakia (b. 1981 in Trnava)
- Currently in Trnava, Slovakia.
- I concentrate on post conceptual tendencies in an intermedia production that mostly presents itself as intervention into public space, and I further take that creatively into another stage.
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Object Guarded by Dog | 2011
The Object Guarded by Dog was a performance in which I was reading the cases of dismissal of directors of galleries that took place during twenty-one years in Slovakia. While reading the individual cases my dog was chain-attached to the object – the stand of Outdoor Gallery in Nitra that the dog guarded temporarily during the event. It was also a metaphor for cultural policy in Slovakia for the past 21 years. Regional politicians act as watchdogs supervising the “correct” operation of cultural institutions. In the text, I critically reflected the situation in public cultural institutions such as galleries, theatres and libraries that are under the pressure from regional politicians who control both their finances and professional activities. I expressed my view that cultural policy in Slovakia should be free and independent as it is funded from our taxes. The practices of the cases mentioned in the texts I read I labeled as unacceptable and vulgar, putting the art and the science of art in the position of an ideological toy with a clear aim to get a political dominance and power over a public institution. I remarked that the public galleries are a professional, not primarily entertaining or “moralistic” territory. At the end of the event, symbolically, I left the dog collar and leaflets on the stand. Leaflets contained information that I read at the opening. And the dog owners were informed that they can also attach collars to their pets and thus find themselves in the role I demonstrated during the opening.